Hello, I'm wondering if you bought the HD 1 camcorder yet and if so how you like it. I've considered this camera since first hearing of it but got spooked by some very bad user reviews, including a couple where the thing just flat quit on the user. I can manage a few technical deficiencies in the video but I want something reliable.

I have the Sanyo C5 and really like it. I get wonderful stills and adequate videos. They are selling this camcorder on the net now for less than $250. If you just want a small unit while you wait for something more perfect, this is a great little camcorder. My ONLYreasons for considering the HD are the 10X zoom and the slightly larger and improved screen. I edit my videos (shorten or delete scenes) in the C5, then load them into a Panasonic HD dvd recorder, then burn a disc. The quality is similar to my old camcorder but probably not quite as good as my mini DVD Canon,.........but I get videos of my hunting trips that I would not otherwise have.

About the firmware fix, has this been offered? Are the camcorders that ship now improved at all in reliability? If anyone knows, I'd appreciate hearing from them. Happy to discover this forum.

One last question for the group. Has anyone had experience with a failed HD1? If so, how was the issue resolved by Sanyo.

Sanyo would have been crazy not to respond to the overwhelming user complaints and awesome feedback toward the HD1 that was given them and to make significant improvements in such a hot ticket item.

The only thing (of course) that makes me wonder again is the price cut of $100 from $799 (HD1) to $699 (HD1a). Perhaps the $799 is with an SD card. And the claim of lower light usability with the same maximum aperture of 3.5. In any event I don't want to wait any longer and will purchase this one come hell or high water.

In any event, the user expertise I found on this site and the links provided to other knowledgable sites has been outstanding andI'd like to thank everyone here for sharing what they know in order that a digital amateur such as myself could make informed product decisions.

I will definitely buy this unit and share anything thatI can when this comes out if people are still going to wait, but then again I'm sure 95% of those interested in the first model will purchase this one too.

Hey there Wayne - what do you think?Â* now that Â*HD1aÂ*is coming!Â* Will it be the consumer Holy Grail of pocket SD camcorders?Â*Â*:|Did they listen?Â*

Sorry for the delay, I just checked here to see if anybody was talking about this, I have not received any post notifications for a while, I must have it set to weekly or something.

It is hotting up. Firstly about Sanyo, they don't mention any really significant feature improvements, and they are dumping the OEL, and lower the price by only $100, $300 and they could sell stacks more. September is too far away. There is no mention of faults being fixed, or the improvements I talked about. There should be at least a higher data rate mode, f/1.2-1.6 lens, all bugs fixed (including stepping in focus and exposure) more latitude, and much better noise reduction over the noise reduction they currently use (for low light). Those pixel binning and dual slope would make for a nice picture (and the dual slope cope with blowouts from 1.2 lens). Actually I would not mind a Lanc and live uncompressed HD HDMI out (or at least live component).

You mentioned better low light performance, where did you see that, that would help?

A reworked version of the camera seriously has something to offer consumers until the competition comes within it's price range. The ultimate handheld solid state camera, for now, but next Month Samsung is scheduled to have a much more expensive one and others will follow. Those extra bitrate H264 cameras have a lot of potential to eclipse this one (though it might still have still image advantages) but for the price Sanyo is still ahead. With 19mb/s and a price gap (at $500 pricing) it would offer significant performance to steer people on the low end away from H264 rivals. Now people might understand why I advocated pricing under $500.

New cameras today:
Today, Sony has announced two new AVCHD (H264) cameras, one a dual layer DVD recorder (as predicted) the other a hard disk version. One hour on a dual layer DVD, at maybe over 6Mb/s or close to 9mb/s (on the 13th they announced the ability to store 60 minutes in 4 GB). There maybe data rates higher than this. The hard drive version is claimed to go to 24mb/s h264. The enhanced hard drive 24mb/s version of AVCHD was announced a few days back. But Sanyo is still the only pocket camera, and cheaper.

Please remember my previous comments. For the US market, we are "looking" at allowing it and "may" make it available.

Also, the HD1 firmware since initial shipment is still the most current firmware.

Hello Sanyo, can you fill us in on the differences between the HD10a and the HD10 model. Have all the problems being fixed 9and will they be fixed on the HD10 models produced in the meantime)? What about the exposure and focus stepping? What about the sky burn out and shadow black clip, that has been seen? HD4 reports increased low light performance, is this true, is there increased signal to noise ratio, and noise removal to go with this? Anything else to help low light, like pixel binning or dual slope/ per pixel gain?

Is there better encoding, or higher bitrate mode? I take it that the macro block diagonal jaggies are fixed up?

Is there going to be an firmware upgrade to the existing camera to add some of these fixes> If so, which fixes?

HD1 is still an important camera, I might even consider buying one for pocket use as well as a 24mb/s AVCHD hard drive camera.

I'm hoping the problems have been fixed (especially the one with the "jaggies" in one diagonal direction). With Fry's having dropped the price on the HD1 to $699 in their flyer this week, I'm hoping that next month(??) the HD1a will drop for the same price (wish it was $500), with the improved performance. If so, it will be on my high-potential list.